11.19.2008

"Ties That Bind" in The Memphis Flyer

If you live in Memphis,TN you should go get The Memphis Flyer, why??? BECAUSE I'M IN IT, DUH! j/k :]

haha.

here is the review byCAROL KNOWLES:

At Marshall Arts, "Ties That Bind" includes works by four artists whose lives are bound together by friendship and a love for the expressive possibilities of line. The sinuous lines and untouched passages of watercolor paper in Mel Spillman's minimal but evocative portraits suggest the svelte figures, milkywhite complexions, and bright lights of celebrity. No matter how matte the makeup or bright the lights, Spillman captures the soul inside the persona. In the 63-by-42-inch pencil-and-paper portrait What's In?, the lower part of the face of the leggy youngster who became the world's first supermodel is nearly washed out. In striking contrast, Twiggy's large, dark eyes dilate and stare at us like a deer caught in our headlights.Roger Allan Cleaves' dystopian societies are inhabited by hybrids (part-human, part-heavy metal) with overdeveloped biceps and buttocks. Penises are projectiles; lovemaking looks lethal. Both the male and the female of the species obsessively cut, rape, and kill each other and anything else that moves. The mayhem is mesmerizing and unsettling. The titles of Cleaves' ink drawings (As Time Goes By, History Repeats Itself) suggest that these homicidal hybrids could be us- could be the next stage of evolution for a species increasingly adept at genocide, collateral damage, and global warfare.In some of the most evocative works in the show, Lindsay Palmore turns the bittersweet and the saccharine into meditations on emotion and time by pouring black washes across floral motifs, art deco baubles, and doilies collaged onto the surface of paintings titled You know my heart- it beats for you and To be sure these days continue. Every inch of Bobby Spillman's paintings are filled with roaring rivers, bird houses, tree limbs, and telephone poles swept up by tornadic winds. Spillman's quick mind and rapid-fire imagination generate conversations as energized as his paintings. At the center of the largest painting in the show, Gimme Shelter, you'll find the artist's alter ego as a Bambi look-alike leaping nimbly over and around flying objects, its fur ruffled by the wind, its huge eyes wide-open- not with fear but wonder.